Topic:
Country: South Africa
Delegate Name: Andrew Dylenski
United Nations Development Program
Food Instability and Political Crises
The Republic of South Africa
Andrew Dylenski
Forest Hills Eastern
Food insecurity is the lack of safe and nutritious food for a person to grow and develop in a healthy way. The Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) estimates nearly 2.3 billion people worldwide who are food insecure this last year. While many developed countries in North America, Europe, and Asia have gathered tactics to deal with this problem such as stabilizing prices, equipping infrastructure, and creating jobs for the unemployed, many developing countries do not have government aid, funds, or land for agriculture to help assist this problem. The World Food Programme(WFP) is a worldwide organization that has worked to bring food assistance to over 80 underdeveloped countries that are malnourished. The UN helped by passing the Millenium Development Goals to help combat poverty worldwide and the Sustainable Development Goals, goal 2 talks about ending hunger by assuring an increase in agricultural production and more, but more work is to be done worldwide to combat this issue along with the problem that this lack of food is leading to political crises in many countries, such as emigration and immigration for food and revolts against the government which just leads to more cutbacks by the government. The UNDP must find a way to tackle this food insecurity and hunger problem in countries while proposing solutions to prevent political crises caused by a lack of food for families and communities.
South Africa has faced many problems with food instability itself. In 2022, it was accounted that about 6.5 million people(11% of the population) in South Africa are hungry and food insecure. Scientists in South Africa brought about some factors for the high amount of food instability in the country: unemployment, large household size, low income, and most importantly, lower education levels. Fortunately, the number of people hungry and food insecure has shrunk from 13.5 million in 2002 to 6.5 million in 2022 with the help of organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) and the World Food Programme(WFP) by helping farmers deal with floods and work with governments to stabilize prices to make more affordable for households nationwide. But, the problem is still present in South Africa and the problem of the restriction of food and resources nationwide from the supplier is causing protests nationwide. For example, around Durban, trucks carrying wheat are being blocked and burned by various citizens in response to their outrage. While the problem of food security and the crime caused by it is declining slowly annually, it is still ever-so-present and needs some assistance from other countries to seek out these minor problems.
Access to food is needed in poor cities where much of the population is unemployed and uneducated and in rural, agricultural areas where the proper farming technology is unavailable. South Africa believes that food production can best be utilized by increased government intervention in creating more jobs for the unemployed so these new workers can have the money to buy food for their families with these new competing prices. The government and international organizations can also help by providing the applications of new agricultural services and technology in areas that cannot afford maximum production and protection against climate change. Also, the government can work to protect social protection programs that give pensions to many households. South Africa will advocate for any resolution that uses government and organization cooperation to provide jobs for the unemployed while supplying agricultural services and technology to the rural agricultural areas in need of it, and the government compensation of the countries police forces to reside in mainly high crime residing places and areas where supply warehouses and chains of food mainly reside in to stop protests and other uprisings by citizens still not satisfied.
